


you're eighty pounds of wreckage in a mason jar (you’re a bit combustible, don't break my heart)

by preludes



Series: dimension 20 alphabet soup [1]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sparring, The Ravening War, War, sorry folks i cannot write a fic about a cake with legs sorry!! they r human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preludes/pseuds/preludes
Summary: Nothing changes about Amethar, Calroy discovers, even during the war.
Relationships: Calroy Cruller/Amethar Rocks
Series: dimension 20 alphabet soup [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178342
Kudos: 11
Collections: Dimension 20 Alphabet 2021





	you're eighty pounds of wreckage in a mason jar (you’re a bit combustible, don't break my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for day 1 & i used the prompt **attack** and listened to [this song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bOBd5p6e0xY) on repeat whilst writing this & it’s also where i got the title. i took the prompt in a more ravening war direction moreso than an actual attack but, hey, i tried!

**_attack_ **  
_noun_

_violence_  
an act of using violence to try to hurt or kill somebody  
_in war_  
an act of trying to kill or injure the enemy in war, using weapons such as guns and bombs

— Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries ([x](https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/attack_1))

-:-

Nothing changes about Amethar, Calroy discovers, even during the war. Even when the war does not end despite the Pontifex’s death (his murder, some of his bolder devotees whisper, but they do not dare declare it louder), even when the war carries on through all the lands that their citizens foolishly had assumed would remain untouched like the river waters which are now muddied with blood. 

And yet still, Amethar remains stagnant; stalwart and sincere and scintillating at the parties they throw in tents too small to fit half the armies they have now somehow amassed by dumb luck and sheer force of Amethar’s sisters collective charisma. 

Amethar even manages to take women and men back to his tent. He wakes every morning to the sound of war trumpets and has the gaul to smile at Calroy, as if everything is fine. As if everything is somehow going to be fine. Calroy calls this what it is, a delusion. 

The soldiers, even the poor ones, even the prisoners forced to fight, all respect Amethar, if only because of his title. They call him Amethar, the Unfallen, since Calroy supposed they all expected him to die in battle on his coward father’s old horse. Sometimes, Calroy thinks of how, if not for an accident of birth, Amethar could be next in line. He would probably bring Candia to ruin. Calroy laughs to himself. 

Amethar does not know how many assassins Calroy has had to kill outside that same tent, how many of those men and women were those assassins, how many bodies in the ground have the marks of Calroy’s saber. And Calroy will never tell him exactly how many people he has killed, partly because he likes the mystery of it, but mostly because he has lost count himself. 

He does not know if Amethar would judge him for those lives he has taken, all the families he has destroyed. He does not care. Calroy did not join this war for Amethar; Candia will be harder to seize if it is in the iron giro of Imperator Focaccia. Amethar’s father was a coward for not honouring an alliance his ancestors died for out of little more than paranoia, but Amethar is decidedly nothing like him. Indeed, Amethar is too brave for his own good, always willing to lay himself on the slaughtering table for the sake of men who would spit on his grave. 

Amethar makes the game of beating him all so disgustingly easy; Calroy knows that to love Amethar is to be destroyed, and so Calroy chooses to despise him instead. But he will do it in private, in the secrecy that shadows provide, in letters he burns as soon as he has spilt the ink. He will not voice any of this to Amethar, the same way that Sir Amanda Maillard will not voice her obviousnattraction to a newly wed Caramelinda. 

No. Calroy will not have Amethar hate him. Not yet. It is too soon. 

Calroy is not a magic user, even though using magic is still not taboo and it won’t be for several decades. He doesn’t care much for magic itself; there is only one type of power he deserves and it is the crown of Candia upon his head. However, he has picked up a few spells on his travels, just small ones that only require a drop of blood, or a dead man’s tooth. 

The spell he finds most useful is the spell that causes his many treasonous letters to burn upon being read and understood, but the effectiveness of a spell Lazuli modified that allows him to rip enemies’s eyes from their heads with only a flick of his wrist, or the spell that allows him to turn invisible for an hour cannot be understated. Amethar has seen him use magic, occasionally, sneaking into enemy lines in the heat of battle so Amethar has a clear path to victory. Amethar laughs when Calroy reappears, holding an enemies knife or their severed head. 

In these quieter moments, when the battle is over and the dead have not yet been mourned, Calroy finds himself grinning back despite the blood on his face. 

“My Prince,” Calroy bows, in a way that would be mocking if Amethar was smarter, which he isn’t. “You won, I presume?”

“No, _we_ won. With your help, we always win.” Amethar sheathes his sword, wipes sweat off of his brow. 

They walk back to the tent with Amethar’s strong arm around Calroy’s shoulders. Amethar is infuriating and incorrigible and intense, and Calroy could love him if he were anyone else, anyone without power which he has not rightfully earned in neither skill or skeletons. Calroy does not kiss him, even though he could, even though he wants to in a part of himself he will not ever have a chance to acknowledge.

Instead, Amethar goes back to his tent alone, and Calroy only then notices his crisp white shirt is now stained sanguine. He puts on a fresh pair of trousers and a jacket to cover it. It doesn’t really work. It doesn’t really matter.

Calroy invites Amethar for a sparring session in the woods. He agrees without question. Calroy does not kill him. The Ravening War rages on in the distance but all Calroy cares about is the weight of his blade against Amethar’s throat, the laugh Amethar lets out as Calroy wins for the second time. Calroy is certain Amethar is letting him win out of friendship, and he finds it somewhat demeaning. 

He doesn’t need Amethar to win. Candia will be his, and Amethar will be dead, and he will win. Amethar does not know this yet. But he will, someday, in a future that Calroy will ensure exists. And, if all goes to plan, Amethar will not live long enough to despise him for it. 

Calroy holds his practise blade to Amethar’s neck, and grins.

**Author's Note:**

> first time trying to write them. idk what this is. sorry if this makes no sense. hope the 3 ppl who read this enjoyed lol <3


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